UpStreamVoice

In this episode of theUpStreamLife.com, we speak with Sabre India's managing director Sriram Gopalswamy. Sriram talks about the evolution of the travel industry from mainframes to Saas; powering online travel agents, and customer experiences.

00:00 - Introduction
02:00 - Sriram talks about what happens at Sabre worldwide.
11:15 - Creating a seamless experience.
17:12 - Technology and evolution from the Sabre India perspective.
24:00 - The dynamic play of tech
34:36 - Making customer experience a success.
42:18 - The modern tech stack
54:00 - Being inspired by sport.

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In this episode we bring you Sandeep Murthy of Light Box. The venture fund has only invested in a dozen plus Indian startups and has been a partner to several startups by enabling their operations to scale. Sandeep talks about the growth of the India story and beyond in this podcast.

00:00 - Introduction to Light Box and the Indian venture opportunity
02:13 - India having changed in the last decade.
06:15 - Looking at India's consumer brand opportunity.
12:50 - Building a brand where there is little wastage.
21:00 - Being disciplined and focused to build a new India
29:00 - Investing as India evolved with tech.
36:36 - Investing is about helping the entrepreneur.
42:00 - Thinking about starting up, working with complexity
45:12 - Operating differently from other VCs
53:25 - Options for liquidity in the market.
01:04:35 - Being inspired by EDM

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How should corporations & aspiring youth look at Indian markets and its political economy. Look no further than this podcast with Pavan Sharma, partner at BCL India, Saketh R, founder of QuickAlpha and senior journalist Vishal Krishna. 

00:00 - Introduction to the guests, setting the context of discussing India’s economic future & aspirations of youth.
01:40 - The post COVID-19 investing boom in India, a great run.
04:56 - Corporate expectations in India and the optimism backing the markets.
06:52 - Is India over priced - a realistic view.
09:46 - Could a global recession hit us, even with India being business friendly.
11:20 - Indian talent and the business friendly policies that India needs to maintain.
16:16 - India is creating a system of accountability and transparency.
18:12 - Family offices investing and retail “young” investors view of the market.
22:10 - Difference between trading and investing
23:15 - Rs 63000 crore went to large investing institutions, individual traders lost money.
30:23 - Influencers being regulated.
33:40 - Global fissures in economy and how Indian economy is resilient.
39:18 - An entire generation of Indians have not faced a recession.
42:15 - Indian entrepreneurs encouraged to new heights and inspiring new ideas.
45:00 - Having good regulations that support business.
46:00 - What can hurt India - jobs/skills/investing.
51:00 - India’s population edge or a tough thing to manage.
56:12 - India needs new cities.
58:00 - Talking about our companies

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In this episode we host Dr Babu Padmanabhan, who is a first generation entrepreneur who went from being a scientist to becoming a businessman. He has built a sizeable organisation around manufacturing machines and digitising manufacturing for three industries. Steerworld is a bonafide made-in-India success story with plants all over the world. Babu loves physics and he talks about what should be done in order to make the world a sustainable place with modern day manufacturing.

00:00 - Introduction to the podcast.
02:00 - Steerworld: a quick introduction.
06:53 - Building world class products with technology.
12:00 - Building a sustainable world with sustainable food production.
17:40 - Building an in-house accelerator for ideas "Applications Labs."
17:58 - How care is changing? The importance of Ayurveda.
21:31 - Playing with multiple materials and verticals.
43:17 - Company is built around materials technology, circular economy
50:00 - Being a design led company and inspirations.

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In this episode I speak with a founder whose business I have tracked for over 12 years. Krishna Kumar, the founder of Simplilearn was one of the early proponents of digital learning with curated programs specific to individual career needs. His company has grown while many learning companies have slowed. He has now moved to the USA to build a new line of learning business for individuals and corporations. In this episode he talks about how to stay resilient as a founder in times of a funding crunch and how to focus on the business.

00:00 - Introduction
01:03 - The journey of Simpliearn during Covid-19 and today.
05:25 - The business in the USA for individuals and corporations.
09:00 - The difference between course learning in India and the USA.
17:40 - Why corporations must fund learning and enable career paths.
22:00 - Building learning for corporations.
29:25 - Companies looking at training their staff in an ever changing world.
31:30 - Making Indian engineering cool with training.
34:00 - India's complex problem of education, making engineers relevant
38:00 - India should become the software hub for the world.
42:16 - How Indian companies in quick commerce can help delivery boys to learn and become relevant?
44:30 - Is India's talent expensive - how can we be competitive?
45:27 - Why there are a lot of jobs even after Generative AI comes in
48:00 - The personal story of raising money.

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In this episode of theUpStreamLife we bring you a series that defines the veteran venture capitalist, Venk Krishnan. In the past, Venk, has backed the likes of MuSigma, Daily Ninja, Acko, Pocket Aces, Third Wave Coffee & Geist.

NuVentures is now renewing its India strategy, the startups that the fund will bet on will have to have a global thesis with their technology. Interestingly, the fund also has a consumer play.

The fund's new investments include Pivot Robots (www.pivotrobots.com) , Raga AI (www.raga.ai) , Mantys (www.mantys.io) and Zigment (www.zigment.ai), which define NuVentures and its current thesis. In the current thesis startups will have access to customers, in the USA, with NuVentures sister firm NuWare, an IT services company with 40 customers in Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) industry and in healthcare.

Venk and the fund believe in backing founders that are mature and have industry experience. Just as curve ball Venk also invests in direct to consumer businesses such as Adukale (www.adukale.com) and Foxtale (www.foxtale.in).

Venk Krishnan breaks down the new approach with Vishal Krishna in the first episode of NuVenture's new podcast series NuPod. Enjoy the podcast.

00:00 - Introduction to NuPod

00:46 - Setting the context to NuVentures new thesis.

01:03 - A quick history of NuVentures

01:59 - A coffee chain that started this love for a focus on India.

03:22 - Being a sector agnostic fund, but with a focus on AI & SaaS.

04:42 - The dual play of NuVentures with IT services firm NuWare

07:07 - An influencer who enables Saas & AI startups with customers

09:07 - Startups in the NuVentures current thesis.

14:47 - Validating startup ideas with customers

16:18 - Startup founders who love this model of working with NuWare's customers

27:26 - Helping startups in its GTM and working with mature founders

34:30 - Looking at problems from the customer's pain point

39:27 - Being in the box office business of D2C (direct-to-customer)

42:47 - The Indian consumption story

43:47 - Trends of tech and the surge of AI

45:49 - Startup founders must be closer to the customer in the USA

48:53 - The status of the VC ecosystem in India. 

52:23 - The basis of advice and what weight it carries.

55:00 - Venk's inspirations

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In this episode I talk with Rahul Johar who has literally scaled brands in India across several retail formats. What is true is that Indian e-commerce brands are now moving offline and they need all the nurturing to understand how distribution works. Distribution is hard, it eats into margins and is a question of having the right eye-balls at retail outlet. This is where Oxbow Brands steps in. 

00:00 - Introduction
01:36 - What is Oxbow and what does it intend to do?
03:06 - 70 years of business legacy
09:00 - The offline experience and why brands need it
12:59 - Why offline distribution derisks your business
20:16 - The fun of modern shopping
23:40 - The business of Oxbow and nurturing brands
31:05 - The excitement of being a business in India.
34:10 - Working with distributors
36:40 - Why tech is necessary to blend with distribution and experience.
40:20 - Retailers supporting smaller brands is important
44:56 - Expansion plans
46:00 - Rahul's inspiration

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In this episode we explore the many facets of Shashi Kumar and his wonderful journey to make farming viable. He is an engineer who stepped into the world of business without a business plan and he tried blending
ancient and modern techniques that could save the soil, and bring money to the farmer by organising the supply chain with the food value chain. Here is his story.

00:00 - Introduction to why farming is life
01:30 - Why Shashi came back to farming.
10:00 - Why is farming difficult in India, what should change.
17:30 - Making farming viable
27:15 - People who came back to farming.
33:40 - Agro ecology being critical.
38:48 - Surviving nine years of hardship before the business took off.
43:40 - The business model that farming needs.
48:38 - Building systems of transparency.
53:24 - Working with the community that loves farming.
57:00 - Inspired by family, father and Dr G N S Reddy.

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In this episode we speak with Srividya, the founder of Avaali. Her company reduces procurement cycle times using digital practices. She talks about how her company has scaled over the years and how digital services are so important for companies going through transformation into the era of generative-AI.

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In this episode of theUpStreamLife.com we talk about how an enterprise grade CRM can be built from India. LeadSquared as you all know is well known for its story of going from India to the world. The founders are IT professionals who sold that business before delving into building a product for India. As opportunity would have it, they have scaled to the USA and are betting big on Indian talent. Its COO and co-founder Prashant Singh tells a story of why it's the era for Indian technology businesses.

00:45 - The meaning of LeadSquared.
07:35 - The first customer and the stakeholder you have to address.
11:00 - Why USA will remain a big business opportunity in years to come.
17:00 - Serving Indian businesses.
23:26 - Building without capital before signing VCs.
29:40 - Traditional businesses going into the digital era.
35:00 - Focusing on the mid-market customer.
42:10 - Building an experience with technology.
47:00 - Using AI and what should India do to lead the #AI story.
50:45 - Lessons of building a product company versus IT services.
53:00 - Prashant's inspirations.

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